Double - Dr Faustus - Research (Artaud) - 22/06/16

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonin_Artaud)

Antoine Marie Joseph Artaud, better known as Antonine Artaud (4 September 1896 – 4 March 1948), was a French dramatist, poet, essayist, actor, and theatre director, widely recognized as one of the major figures of twentieth-century theatre and the European avant-garde.

Artaud believed that theatre should be a force for the liberation of the human subconscious and revelation of man to himself. He called for "communion between actor and audience in a magic exorcism; gestures, sounds, unusual scenery, and lighting combine to form a language, superior to words, that can be used to subvert thought and logic and to shock the spectator into seeing the baseness of his world."

(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theatre_of_Cruelty)

The Theatre of Cruelty is a form of theatre developed by avant-garde playwright, actor, essayist, and theorist, Antonin Artaud, in The Theatre and its Double. Originally a member of the surrealist movement, Artaud eventually began to develop his own theatrical theories. The Theatre of Cruelty can be seen as break with traditional Western theatre, and a means by which artists assault the senses of the audience, and allow them to feel the unexpressed emotions of the subconscious. While Artaud was only able to produce one play in his lifetime that reflected the tenets of the Theatre of Cruelty, the works of many theatre artists reflect his theories. These artists include Jean Genet, Jerzy Grotowski, and Peter Brook.

From looking at this research I feel we can use a lot of "Theatre of Cruelty" techniques in our Dr Faustus play such as gestures, sounds and unusual lighting. I will continue to refer to this throughout my future blog posts

Double - Practitioners (Frantic Assembly) - Blog 2 - 07/09/15

This lesson, everyone knew each other already so the start wasn't too slow. At the beginning of the lesson, we were told to get out a chair each and sit on them in a horizontal line. This was our first position. We were told to move between a total of 8 positions that we would pick randomly. After going over the pattern a couple of times, we added movement from the "Round-by-through" work that we did. Following this, our piece was much more effective at captivating our lovely audience (Ashley Clayton; Year 13). After perfecting this, Miss McSherry gave us a stimulus which she later revealed to be an extract from Shakespeare's, "Othello." Everyone's focus was on me whilst I was a drunken guard. My actions and gestures were more lazy and clumsy meanwhile my movement was staggered. Our audience enjoyed the piece as it vocalised what the scene in Othello meant and it was interesting and comical to watch.

Afterwards we watched a video by a theatre company called, "Frantic Assembly." Frantic Assembly are a very "physical theatre" based company and use a lot of movement from physical theatre in their pieces. They use these techniques to paint an image in the minds of the audience and convey their characters emotions effectively.

We watched one of their videos on YouTube entitled, "Frantic Assembly Masterclass: Building Blocks For Devising." They taught other people in the video how to do Round-by-through; the technique we learnt last lesson. What they did more than us, was they added weight into the mix so when moving, the tempo was slower and when lifting up each others arms to go through each other, they had no room to move through due to the lack of space as their arms were very heavy to lift out of the way. After this, we practised our pieces from last lesson and tried to improve upon them.

Following our improvements, we continued to watch the video and learnt a new technique called, "Hymn Hands." These are varied speed movements of placing hands on each others bodies and other similiar movements. This technique can help replicate a lot of stories such as fighting, playing or healing wounds. After watching this video, we paired up and created our own short "Hymn Hand" pieces.

We then came together as a group and watched a video advertising Save The Children called, "Most Shocking Second A Day Video." We shared our opinions on the video and what themes we could draw from it from which we would then pick a theme or multiple themes and create a piece together as a group using the Round-by-through techniques and Hymn Hands we learnt so far. We decided it would be best if our group of 6 split into 3 pairs and made our own mini-pieces and then when we were done in our pairs, we grouped back together and performed our 3 ideas together at the same time. I paired up with Ollie and we decided to use the themes of War and Loss and told the story of a fatally injured soldier being carried to a safe spot to check over but ultimately he was taken to meet his untimely demise. We used Hymn Hands a great deal to express my characters eagerness to assist Ollie's character.

When we performed all of our pieces together they went incredibly well together as they all showed a common theme: Loss.

Double - Practitioners (Frantic Assembly) - Blog 1 - 04/09/15

This was our first lesson of not only Double Performing Arts but Performing Arts in it's entirety. Despite only knowing a few people, I easily got on well and worked well with everybody in the class. We all showed a positive attitude towards not only working but performing too!

To kick of the lesson we got into pairs and listed reasons why people do drama. We came up with a huge list of reasons including, To entertain people, To gain life skills, and To educate yourself and others. This exercise helped us all vocalise our reasons and allow others to get to know us somewhat.

Afterwards, we did an exercise in which there we three chairs and we had to move form chair to chair simultaneously with the rest of the class. After perfecting the original task we added a different stimuli and movements to enhance our exercise. This helped us work together as one unit and develop our improve skills.

Following this we did an exercise where we got into partners and had to keep eye contact and stay the same distance apart from each other. One person would be the leader, so whenever they moved, their partner would mirror their actions as if they were connected by a web by the eyes. After we had practiced this for a while, two Year 13s, Toby and Ash, then attempted to interrupt our concentration whilst we're still moving. If someone were to lose eye contact with their partner then they would have to join whoever caught their eye (e.g. If James were to lose eye contact with me and then focus on Toby, he would then partner with Toby, his new leader and I would then go to steal someone else's partner.)

After this exercise we started briefly on our work to do with physical theatre called Round-By-Through. Through is walking through someone such as going underneath the arms or through the legs. Round is spinning around someone by rolling across their body. By is using hand gestures with your partner's body. We only covered this shortly though. We then watched each pairs work and added different music in the background, changed the tempo of their entire piece and changed the pairs focus. We also analysed each performance and thought up scenario's and stories behind their movement.

This first lesson was extremely fun and I very much look forward to the next one!